John AddiegoBesprekingen

Tears of the Mountain is a one-part literary fiction, one-part mystery, and one-part historical fiction. It makes for an interesting combination, albeit a rather slow one. From a historical perspective, the novel is fascinating. From such scenes as crossing the Great Plains on the road from Missouri to Oregon and then down to California via wagon train to the beginnings of the Mexican War and the centennial of the United States, Mr. Addiego places the reader in these historical settings with crisp details and refreshing clarity.

Jeremiah McKinley is a deliberate hero, one who is methodical and slow in all his dealings, and the novel suffers a bit as a result. His plodding through the one day that encompasses the novel drags at times, especially as the story is told through flashbacks of his life. The transitions back and forth between past and present are quite unusual and remain jarring throughout the novel. Yet, the timing of them was masterful as Mr. Addiego builds the suspense between Jeremiah's past and his experiences on this July 4th in 1876. Just as the story gets interesting, Mr. Addiego tears the reader away and switches back and forth, so that the reader is compelled to continue.

The two-stories-in-one is not a new plot device and one that works only partially in Tears of the Mountain. At times, the reader does not care what is happening in the present because the past is so interesting. The present conflict is more a side note to everything that Jeremiah experienced in his youth, and ultimately, this is where the story shines the brightest.

The language alternates between stark and fanciful, and the dichotomy is also a bit jolting. The characters themselves remain stereotypical, with the eccentric but lovable rascally schoolteacher to the beautiful woman whom everyone adores to the thieving Indians and Mexican bandits. However, Mr. Addiego manages to create a novel that highlights the twists and turns life can take and how impossible it is to predict them.

While not for everyone, Tears of the Mountain is a novel that details the hard-scrabble life of living on the frontier in the 1800s. The characters, while predictable, are still memorable, and the story itself is best when the reader is exploring Jeremiah's personal and physical journey across the country. It is not a novel I would highly recommend to others but one for which I am glad I read because of the historical context and learnings.

Way better than I expected. I am not at all sure what the title of the book or the cover art has to do with the story and that is what really turned me off for a long time. I love the characters and the story was interesting, though the jump around and the stories all seemed somewhat independant made it a little hard for me to keep everyone straight and remember the important details for something further on in the story. But, overall, the book was good, interesting, and kept me involved.½

This was an uncorrected proof so reading it could be quite tedious especially when so of the pages were printed so lightly, I could barely make out the words. But nevertheless, it was a good read.

The story begins with Rosari, the family matriarch, her family and descendents from their beginnings in a small Italian village to Ellis Island ad finally to San Francisco. The multiple points of view would seem confusing but it works here. The story of Rosari, her family, her husband, children and grandchildren is heartbreaking, frustration and comical. Everyone could relate because there is one person like that in every family. The book left me with a smile on my face when I finished

The Islands of Divine Magic works best as a collection of short stories. It's easy to pick up and delve into one and then walk away from the book for a while. I found myself enjoyng the characters and John Addiego's world when I did pick it up. Unfortunately, it was also easy to forget to return to it.

I wasn't able to finish this book. It was well-written, but the format of connected short stories just didn't work for me. I couldn't connect with the characters. I gave it almost 100 pages, but then set it aside and never found the desire to pick it up and finish it.

The trouble with a book about multiple generations is often that you lose track of people and characters aren't quite fleshed out. The Islands of Divine Music doesn't escape this flaw. It is, however, full of beautiful prose and the story is interesting.

John Addiego’s debut novel - The Islands of Divine Music - is a multi-generational novel in short stories about the Verbicaro family. The book spans more than 100 years and is told from the multiple viewpoints of five generations of Italian-Americans, beginning with the voice of matriarch Rosari as she leaves Southern Italy bound for the United States. Although each individual must move through their life with their own problems, challenges, and unique perspectives…they are all bound together by family and the divine. A member of my book group referred to them as “islands within the chain of an archipelago” which seems to describe the structure of this novel well.

The Islands of Divine Music is not an easy book to read and understand. Addiego uses magical realism to bring forth his themes of isolation, faith and love of family. All the characters are seriously flawed - some becoming embroiled in the mafia, others turning towards prostitution, and some slipping into the stranglehold of drug addiction. They fight demons such as social alienation, violence, and infidelity. All of this occurs against the backdrop of 20th century American history: Immigration, Prohibition, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights. It is a large platter of rich subject matter - and at times it seems almost too weighty for a novel of just under 250 pages.

Addiego is a skillful writer and there were some passages that were so beautifully written I began marking them:

Eleonora stood on deck with her head uncovered, her face radiant, and the sky fell as white jewels onto her black hair. She lifted Rosari’s hand, and they dance slowly through the snow, a substance Rosari had never seen before, a phenomenon which seemed to her then the flight of a million angels come to guide her mother and herself to a new life. - from The Islands of Divine Music, page 14 -

Through the glass their eyes met, and Penny’s heart jumped, and as the pneumatic door snapped shut and the car lurched forward she mouthed his name, and he nodded. Both of them opened their mouths and pointed as the train swiftly drew them apart, the one who had stood on the Golden Gate Bridge an hour earlier and decided against death by the direction of a bird’s flight and the other who’d returned in thought to that hidden mesa at the end of the world where a mother and child huddled under a blue poncho and waited for the shadow of death to pass over. - from The Islands of Divine Music, page 129 -

Despite these exquisite passages, the novel also was quite graphic in its descriptions of violence - especially one scene which describes the sexual assault of one of the female characters. There were moments in the book where I felt Addiego could have been less graphic and still made his points.

One of the flaws of the novel was the vast numbers of characters which flow in and out of the narrative. Luckily for the reader, Addiego provides a genealogical chart at the beginning which I found myself referring to many times just to keep everyone straight. This novel often felt like a collection of short stories (and indeed, many of the chapters were previously published as short stories). I found myself frustrated at times that just as I was starting to get to know one character, I was introduced to another. The second half of the book felt better connected to me than the first part.

I have a negative bias toward novels entrenched in magical realism, so it is to Addiego’s credit that I found myself slipping into the world of the Verbicaro family and wanting to know more about them. The language of this novel is raw and occasionally graphic; often the characters are gritty and unlikable. Although I think Addiego is a talented writer, the book was not really my cup of tea. But for readers who love magical realism and who like a novel which is unique, The Islands of Divine Music might be just what you are looking for…

The cover art on this book is wonderful. The artist is Paul Zwolak and you can find more of his amazing work here and here.

Lazaro and Eleonora Cara immigrated from Italy to New York with their daughter Rosari. Eleonora battled mental illness and when she was found dead, Lazaro and Rosari decided it was time to start over, so they moved to San Francisco. There, Rosari married Guiseppe Verbicaro and they had 6 children. Guiseppe worked hard and they led a fairly normal life. When Guiseppe was 79, he left Rosari for a young, pregnant prostitute. Her son, Jesús, would change this family forever.

The Islands of Divine Music by John Addiego is more like a series of short stories (about different members of the family) than a novel, and this concept didn't really work well for me. While Addiego's writing is beautiful, I found parts of the book rambling and redundant and there were so many characters I found myself wondering who I was reading about at times. The beginning and the end of the book meshed well for me but a lot of the middle just seemed unnecessary. I received this book as part of the Library Thing Early Reviewers Program.

The Islands of Divine Music is delightful find. This first novel by John Addiego tells the multi-generational tale of the Verbicaro family from their immigration to America through the turbulent highlights of the 20th Century.

The Verbicaro family grows out of the rubble of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, with all the vitality and tumult of their adopted city. After the first generation starts a demolition company, the second generation gets in on the ground floor of the WWII Bay Area building boom. The family business provides a structure for the family as well as the narrative of the book. That family structure is badly damaged by the Vietnam War, leading to a final adventure that tests the faith and love of the third generation of Verbicaros.

The book is dense with historic and family details, but is still as emotionally effervescent and essentially joyful as the extended family it portrays.½

The Islands of Divine Musicis a fabulous novel, one that I really, really loved and would highly recommend. Each chapter is focused on a different family member, but most family members show up in most chapters, so you get to know all of these characters very well - which is somewhat surprising for such a short novel. The novel is most closely characterized as a family saga, but it is not the typical 500+ page clunkster that most family sagas tend to be - it’s much more conscice, running at about 250 pages. Each chapter reads like a short story, and to be honest, I think that most of them could actually stand up on their own as short stories independent from one another… but it is in tying them all together in such a seamless way that makes Addiego such a great storyteller and novelist. Another thing that I loved about this book was the writing - it is written in an absolutely beautiful style, yet at the same time very simply written and easy to follow. I can’t really explain that, other than to say that he covered a LOT of ground (like 100 years) in a somewhat short book, while still making the reader feel like a complete story was being told. Last, I really enjoyed the characters in this book. While none of them was super fleshed-out, I still felt like I truly got to know and love each and every one. They were complex characters and not at all one-dimensional, which is not easy to do with so many of them and not a lot of pages to work with.

Overall, highly recommended read. Definitely pick this one up!½

Poetic and filled with hints of magical realism, The Islands of Divine Music is a complicated tale of an Italian family in America. Though the story is entertaining and vivid, it is ultimately forgettable due to a lack of dimension in its characters. For such a short book, there are far too many personalities that Addiego inserts, allowing him to only develop them as archetypes and caricatures instead of fleshed out and realistic people.